My work at GreenLeaf Market and ZOOMSTL

My work-story at Greenleaf Market and ZOOM Convenience Store

This role as marketing director for GreenLeaf Market and ZOOM Convenience Store is, in retrospect, my favorite job ever. I feel like I really came into my own during my time here, and that I was challenged to use the full range of my skills in marketing, team work, leadership, and problem solving. I loved working with different community partners (from Explore St. Louis to grassroots organizations), connecting with our regular customers, being able to make a positive impact on St. Louis’s Northside community while in this position.

After leaving Red Brick because of Pete Rothchild’s impending retirement, “E.T.” had approached me, asking me to take this job at an as yet unbuilt grocery store and a solar powered convenience shop and gas station that had just barely started construction. I thought it was ridiculous, and accepted a job offer with another start up (Radius Realty). When Radius shortly got acquired by another business partner and I found myself out of work again, E.T. asked me again. ZOOM Convenience Store had been built, and the grocery store had walls and a roof.

I asked my closest mentor at the time, the VP of a PR agency, what I should do. It didn’t offer health insurance (for the first year) but was a 15 minute drive from home and my sense of adventure was piqued. In that same week I had received two other marketing job offers, one from a very stable environmental services company a 30 minute drive away and the other from a nearby real estate company. Both offers paid similarly and had standard health insurance and 401k benefits.

My mentor encouraged me to take the position at GreenLeaf/ZOOM, because to get the chance to launch a grocery store without grocery industry experience, would be the experience of a lifetime! I asked my good friend and other mentor, KJ, which job I should take. His rationale was the same, but knowing me for 12+ years, he was even more emphatic that I should say “yes” to this unusual opportunity. 

I threw myself into this position and did my best to quickly create efficient processes and structure so that work could be done smarter. One of my biggest highlights was inventing Grocery Market Kits (affordable meal kits for needy families), and working with The St. Louis Science Center and HECTV to execute a video cooking show (this was cut short due to COVID and my subsequent departure).

I will probably never get to launch a grocery store again, and true to my mentors’ predictions, taking this opportunity to become the Marketing Director for GreenLeaf Market and ZOOM Convenience Store was the experience of a lifetime.  

Unfortunately, I could see factors out of my control and numbers going in the wrong direction despite best efforts. I was fortunate during that uncertain month of the economy and world stopping in March 2020, that I connected with a recruiter who placed me in my next role at Spirtas Wrecking Company. By the end of 2020 GreenLeaf was under new management.